Look at Ray Ray Run

Our expectations ≠ Expected outcome. It is more likely the Yankees are better than the Sox in 2021; that is statistically supported. It does not mean it is guaranteed they are better, but logically arguing the White Sox are in worse shape (regarding expected outcomes) entering 2021 is more logical than arguing the Yankees are worse off entering 2021 than the Sox. Our opinions on the matter, without supported justification, are pretty irrelevant.

Yankees Projected wins: FG: 95 Off-shore Books: 95.5 BP: 97 Mean: 95.83 White Sox Projected Wins: FG: 87 Off-Shore Books: 91.5 BP: 83 Mean: 87.16

This is pure athletic pedastalling nonsense. Athletes are no better or worse, on average, working with people they don't like than the average person. Some of the best teammates are the worst players and the best players the worst teammates. That's life in general.

I find this part to be a bit ironic. For one, many in industry despise these big hedge funds who have basically found a loophole around insider trading and have exploited/manipulated the market in ways to benefit them which has directly effected other market players and cost them money. So if anything, the major players near the top have harmed 99% of those within industry which has led to animosity. Additionally, they give the entire industry a bad rap and a bad name; many are trying to make an honest living. Many didn't lobby for the profitization of the commodities market which directly led to starvation globally and immense issues for farmers in this country. Many didn't lobby to have things like mortgages turned into securities and then blocked and reblocked to turn subprime garbage into A graded securities. Many didn't lobby and push for the destruction of lending regulations that took advantage/exploited people into loans and etc they couldn't afford. The fact is, there are a lot of scum bags in industry, but the majority are people genuinely trying to make an honest living and the SEC/Governments reluctance to actually hold the worst of the worst (like Griffin and Cohen) accountable for the destruction of the industry has not only cost people below them lots of money but it's also given the industry in general a black eye. Instead, just like in '08, the SEC and government attempt to hold little people with little influence and support accountable as an example, as opposed to actually going after those whom have spent years manipulating every aspect of the market to the betterment of themselves. As for your second part, yeah the entire "complexity" thing is by design. There's nothing complex about 99% of the processes; it's the rhetoric and verbiage that are designed to confuse people and inflate the "difficulty" of what is being done. The SEC is a joke; certainly not some organization to be lauded for their crackdown on illegal activity that they never crack down on. All in all, no one should believe the government is going to do anything to any of these people; especially not after 2008 where they let the biggest fraudsters in the industry walk out of their buyouts with big bags of cash and zero accountability for bankrupting and making-homeless millions of Americans. If blatant predatory actions are no longer criminally illegal (fines don't deter given that that fines were much less than the profits made), then there's no reason for people to stop doing them. It's a damn shame, honestly.

This is fair BUT the implication from the post - as I understood it - was this was related to investors themselves (not the brokerage) extended on margin with the brokerage. Additionally, I'm not sure I would use the term margin call regarding a broker and a clearinghouse as the broker is not an investor per se. Given that it takes two days for them to clear the trades with the CH, and the volatility of GME, the clearinghouse upped the collateral requirements (also something I find shady) to reduce the overall risk. My problem is 100% not with them allowing traders to sell out of their positions. My complaint is entirely regarding manipulating the market by ONLY allowing you to sell out of a position. That should be 100% illegal. If trading is halted on the buy side, a promotion of sell-only by a brokerage should 10000% be illegal and classified as market manipulation. Additionally, as I said further down in my post it's flat out embarrassing that Robinhood ran into this capital issue in the first place. They'll be out of business (imo) soon enough.

? I'm not sure what part of this post is my favorite. Where you act like Hedge Funds will be held accountable for their wrong doings - Steve Cohen just bought a professional sports team with the 8 billion he obtained via illegal insider trading - or where you act like bigruss needs to provide you with hard evidence to support the idea that the market manipulators who are two of the worst people in the history of the financial industry in this country (Steve Cohen and Ken Griffin), two of the biggest crooks in modern American times, and then all he has to do is tip off the SEC who... **checks notes** ... have never even gotten into a court room with Cohen or Griffin despite their obvious illegal activities.... and he'll get 10% of the "fines." Your faith in the SEC is magical given that they spend 99% of their existence attacking little traders, and non-problem causers, and 1% doing nothing but saying very much. You claiming if it is there, it will be found is hilarious. The government literally had Steve Cohen's leading pharma/medical trader having hour+ long phone calls daily/weekly with the lead doctor of a Alzheimer's study/treatment that was in testing for a major pharma company; a company they had a major position on. Then the day before the studies results were to be released publicly at a conference, that same trader traveled to ann arbor michigan (where the doctor lived) and stopped by his house (phone records, receipts, all of it). After that meeting, the trader called Cohen, and that afternoon/following morning they moved out of their entire position before the doctor spoke at a conference where he had to declare the treatment did not succeed in trials (The doctor ironically enough was fired from his job at Michigan and fired as a consultant etc for his actions). They had the phone call made to Cohen right after the meeting; they had the sell calls put in to multiple different banks as to not set anything off; they had the phone calls nightly and weekly between trader and doctor (when no communication at all should have ever happened). What happened to Cohen? Nothing. That was one of many cases that led to him having to "close down" his first Fund which he was then allowed to open another one in 5 years. No actual charges were ever levied against Cohen either; just the fund. Certainly nothing criminal. You should probably stop trusting the SEC to actually hold incredibly wealthy funds/people accountable. Any by the way, everyone who works for Cohen is asked to do the same thing. Most big hedge funds are not operating on anything but illegal obtained information past company to company; or in citadels case, they get to front load all the robin hood buys/data because they pay for it; another thing that should be absolutely illegal.

Couple points, and SS2k I'm absolutely floored that you think this "These are the types of cases that the FINRA/SEC has brought its entire existence," which is true if you mean meaningless cases against people that pose the government no risk of legal pushback, and also that you believe that this guy deserves to go to jail for anything. He was posting his stake in GME when no one was viewing his posts, and the majority of people that were called him a dumb ass and money burner. He didn't push the position on anyone. The SEC should be investigating actual market manipulators, like Citadel for example. Or pretty much any other hedge fund that trades solely on inside information or sure market manipulation via a network like CNBC. Most that work in industry but don't work for these crooks (even many who do) understands how much damage they've done to the industry in a whole. 1. The brokerages that shut down did not due so far margin reasons. They did so because of clearinghouse issues and a demanded escalation of collateral that places like Robin Hood couldn't afford - which is incredibly embarrassing and unacceptable in the first place. Now, I also think there were other issues here and the fact that Citadel and Cohen were even hovering around leads me to believe it wasn't just Clearinghouse issues but that no doubt was the primary driver. I also have issues with a brokerage preventing you from using your money for whatever you like - the forced sales on that day should also be 100% illegal for any traders/trades not being made on margin. If you want to shut down margin trading, fine, but pushing people out of positions by being in sell only mode is manipulation in it's own sense. 2. Given the short % of the company float (which is what this was) many of these shares that were borrowed, were either never actually purchased (illegal) or they were borrowed out multiple times (Illegal but loopholed), both which should constitute naked shorting; the way they get around this is they lend shares out multiple times to different people/funds. Which is still naked shorting but somehow this loophole has led to the SEC cowering and not pursuing the proper channels to shut this BS down. You're misleading people claiming this 140% ratio was related to daily volume; this 140% was the short interest of the company float (which is total shares in circulation). They were naked shorting the stock. What the reddit kid did was not wrong. If a bunch of Hedge Fund managers and etc can go on CNBC in the middle of the day and declare apocalyptic BS to move prices in a direction to benefit their positions, then some guy posting his position on reddit for fun for months is not illegal.

Episode was a good listen. Frank asks Tim for 46 steals this upcoming season. ?

Couple of quotes on La Russa early that were interesting. Tim still seems a bit reluctant from this interview but says he's coming around to it. He also says that "we can't let La Russa overshadow what we're doing here."

Interesting thoughts; I believe it was you who addressed my post in a personal manner; not the other way around. Unless I missed the name calling or pointed response to you specifically? I believe it is me who lives in your head there, pal. And yes, people who call me an idiot and clueless on a topic only to be proven horribly wrong will have me enjoyably pull receipts because that's part of the fun on a forum? Otherwise we'd just shout or thoughts into the void. Have a good one, champ!

LOL, pal you're the one who felt the need to call me clueless and state I knew nothing about a subject matter over and over. When you gang up on a poster with other posters to say how stupid they are, only to be proven categorically wrong, expect to be lambasted for it. That's the point of online receipts. Emotions aren't involved in my internet interactions, but when the exchanging of ideas and thoughts becomes toxic to the point of pointless personal jabs and insults by multiple people I no longer find enjoyment or value in contributing hence my stark decline in posting. Cutting back on contributing isn't "quitting." Posting is a hobby, and hobbies are supposed to be enjoyable. When they stop being that, I simply do them less. It's not rocket science.

So the post where you called me a know it all, and then explained to me why it wasn't racism despite me already saying it wasn't racist, was somehow you understanding my point? That's quite the take. The final line of my post was directed at your earlier comment; the rest was clearly not. Again though, you have issues with responding to posts instead of posters.

It wouldn't be a characteristic that should define you in a discussion. This isn't hard to understand. Randomly pointing out a Hispanic players lack of English acumen has no place in that conversation. Mathers history isn't a secret in the baseball world either. Please continue to defend his rhetoric though, it behooves you quite well.

I know reading comprehension and my posts has never been a strength of yours, so I'll highlight this part to help you better read it: "If you want to say it's not racist, sure, but it's absolutely discriminatory and it's offensive." Is that clear enough for you, now? So thanks for again trying to call me out, when I literally said what you are now saying. Maybe if you responded to the post and not the poster you wouldn't constantly claim I said things I never said, and you wouldn't let emotions get the best of you in internet discussions.

I like that Julio tried to make light of it, but this is a great indicator of how something as small as randomly discussing a players English acumen, while he's already assimilating to a new country and culture while traveling and dedicating his time to perfecting his craft, can be incredibly disrespectful, discriminatory and flat out ignorant.

What I see in this thread are a ton of people who have no interactions with non-American's on a frequent basis and have never sought out conversations with people from different backgrounds. Randomly critiquing someones ability to speak English, when the USA does NOT have a native language, is disrespectful and to many of those people hurtful. Many people whose first language is not English are very self conscious about their accents, word usage, or their inability to speak as well as they wish. They are self conscious due to the attitude displayed by Mather and the likes. Let's first start with the Japanese nonsense spewed by him. Interpreters are comfort for people whose first language may not be English and are in a spotlight. You never want to misconstrue a question or misspeak and have it blow up in your face. Additionally, eastern culture is dramatically different than western culture so having someone like you around all the time can help you assimilate much better to the foreign environment in which you're also asked to perform at the highest level. Now for hispanics; why do you feel the need to randomly comment on their ability to speak English? Americans are simply uncultured despite being a melting pot of a country. Uncultured to a point of incredible embarrassment, but many Americans view that uncultured nonsense as a badge of honor. We're one of the only developed western nations that don't have a majority of the populace learning/speaking multiple language. Our ignorance is something that leads to frequent disrespect to those who are either trying to learn english, or who already speak some but aren't perfect. Someone asking why it's a big deal why the President of a company randomly comments on an employees ability to speak English when it's irrelevant to his success (the onus should be on the organization to help drive comfort and success, not discredit their lack of english speaking ability) completely overlooks the levels of disrespect and ridicule within that comment. Someone who doesn't understand how elitist it is to mention, in passing, his ability to speak English to the rotary club is part of the issues we have. If you want to say it's not racist, sure, but it's absolutely discriminatory and it's offensive. It's something that these guys are self conscious about to begin with given that they were thrown into a new culture, with (in many cases) very little support system, and don't even speak the language fluently and now their boss is shaming them for that in front of a bunch of strangers. The USA doesn't have a national language for a reason, yet when it comes to degrading those who don't speak their language the US ranks right up there with the pompous French despite not even having one. It's actually shameful that the USA doesn't teach spanish to all kids given the amount of people in the country that speak it. As someone who lives in a house with a non-native English speaker, I have seen how she's been disrespected or judged by customer service reps, coworkers, people at restaurants and strangers in public. I'm embarrassed for most who don't understand that the issue isn't that my wife has an accent, it's that millions of Americans think that's a problem or something that should be brought to peoples attention. LOL at comparing this to some taco truck and saying the guys English isn't great. It's more like saying, I like this guys tacos even though he doesn't speak English; as if him not speaking English is a bad thing or somehow has to be overcome by incredible tacos.

If Lucroy is in the opening day lineup then this off-season was even more of a disaster than I initially thought.

I can't like this post enough. Your last point, that I bolded, is the most important to me. No one is saying the White Sox can't be good; they could be very good! In fact, projection models think so too, as their win outcomes range from 83 up to 105, but what all fans should be tired of is needing everything to go right to reach the potential the front office has sold for years. The job of the front office was to take this very talented core that is going to have some ups and downs, and give them much more likely production in pair with it. If you add two starters (even in the 8-10 million dollar range) and a real RF'er this off-season, you're looking at a team whose mean win total is now at 88-89ish, with all that youth and "variance." And with the idea that Giolito and Anderson are legitimately undervalued due to data/input issues when trying to evaluate them vs the avg. A common misconception of the "models don't project young players" isn't that they don't or can't, it's that a lot of young players fail and that's accounted for. We, as fans, may not believe OUR players will fail, but the reality is development comes in funky patterns and the sum of those patterns results in the outputs we see. So it's not that they don't project young players well, it's that there's more variance in those projections and as fans we're less likely to see that downside. What is exhausting is the front office not supporting the risk of those young players with proven vets; while also not requiring us to give up assets. There's a guy in this thread saying you HAVE to give Zack Collins and Dylan Cease a chance to play all the time. Why? The Dodgers are literally telling Gonsolin and May to take a seat and move to the bullpen until your number is called because depth is imperative and having proven assets when competing for a title increases your chances of competing for that title. You want to give Vaughn a shot because of your internal scouting, fine whatever but you could have given him a look/shot while also signing a proven MLB hitter to be your DH - further lessening the risk and burden of Vaughn. The job was to spend money when the window opened, that's what was sold. Well the window is open, and we're still stuck here rooting for a roster that needs to exceed their expected outcomes in order to be at the top of the totem pole.

With Tim it's not about ascending. It's that he succeeds in a way that no one else does. Projection systems will never fully capture his value because it judges him vs the avg player. I agree Tim and Vaughn projections are low and they're due to data issues; vaughn being not enough data and Tim being an incredibly unique skill set that succeeds in a very unprecedented way, I think the giolito one isn't great because it's still utilizing data from when he was a different pitcher entirely but it's really only a win shy of most others that view him highly. Lynn's on the other hand isn't terrible. Father time gets everyone and expecting regression at this age and beyond isn't ludicrous. Moncada is a tricky one. I think covid mattered but Yoan has to show that 2019 wasn't a fluke before its fair to say that is a poor projection. Frankly his 99th percentile being the same as madrigal is comical though but that brings me to madrigal who BP is much higher on than most so for some players they may understate there are ones they also may overrate.

Honestly, I don't think people remember how weak the offenses were that the White Sox faced last year and their back end of the rotation still got murdered. Having the Indians in the division helped them face some elite pitching but they didn't exactly light the Indians up. People hate projections that don't like their team, I get it, but to say that the projections are absurd and our opinions are superior without substantiating it is just lazy.

K

duplicate

Fair enough; you're certainly entitled to your opinion. Saying the Astros are for sure worse than the White Sox doesn't jive with almost any projection system. Whether PECOTA, FG's, or the countless others. It's actually not even all that close. When the W/L totals release the Astros will also be ahead of the White Sox there as well. I can definitely buy the Indians - the offense is just so rough - and the Angels are boom or bust so a lot of risk and variance there. But the Astros, as of today, are a better baseball team than the White Sox IMO.